THAILAND: Holding Big Pharma's feet to the fireby Marwaan Macan-Markar, Inter Press ServiceMay 17th, 2007For nearly a week, the advertising pages of Thai- and English-language dailies have been the stage for debates on Thailand's decision to break patents on anti-AIDS drugs in the interest of public health. A lobby championing the cause of the powerful pharmaceutical companies ran full-page spreads in the morning newspapers with an eye-catching warning in large, bold text, which said: "The Wrong Prescription for Thailand".

CANADA: Barrick Boss Gets Servedby Amy Chung, Now (Toronto)May 10th, 2007Protest Barrick, a network of aboriginal communities from Australia, the U.S., Latin America and Asia, converged on Barrick Gold Corporation's shareholder meeting at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre May 2 to serve the company an eviction notice from First Nation land.

IRAQ: 'Pentagon Moved to Fix Iraqi Media Before Invasion'by Jim Lobe, Inter Press ServiceMay 9th, 2007In the run-up to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon planned to create a 'Rapid Reaction Media Team' (RRMT) designed to ensure control over major Iraqi media while providing an Iraqi 'face' for its efforts, according to a ‘White Paper' obtained by the independent National Security Archive (NSA) which released it Tuesday.

US: Hurdles Loom in Deal for Reuters by AARON O. PATRICK, Wall Street JournalMay 9th, 2007Thomson Corp. and Reuters Group PLC's ambitious plan to create the world's largest supplier of financial data and news could face regulatory hurdles as it would narrow the market to two main competitors from three.

US: Another Chemical Emerges in Pet Food Caseby
DAVID BARBOZA, The New York TimesMay 9th, 2007A second industrial chemical that regulators have found in contaminated pet food in the United States may have also been intentionally added to animal feed by producers seeking larger profits, according to interviews with chemical industry officials here.

CONGO: New row over delay of Congo funds reportby Dino Mahtani, Financial TimesMay 8th, 2007The World Bank has withheld the findings of an inquiry into alleged
mismanagement of bank funds in the Democratic Republic of Congo, raising fresh questions about the anti-corruption strategy of Paul Wolfowitz, the bank's president

CONGO: New row over delay of Congo funds reportby Dino Mahtani, Financial TimesMay 8th, 2007The World Bank has withheld the findings of an inquiry into alleged
mismanagement of bank funds in the Democratic Republic of Congo, raising fresh questions about the anti-corruption strategy of Paul Wolfowitz, the bank's president.

US: Chevron Seen Settling Case on Iraq Oilby Claudio Gatti and Jad Mouwad, New York TimesMay 8th, 2007Chevron, the second-largest American oil company, is preparing to acknowledge that it should have known kickbacks were being paid to Saddam Hussein on oil it bought from Iraq as part of a defunct United Nations program, according to investigators.

US: Firms Protest Exclusion From Iraq Security Bidby Alec Klein and Steve Fainaru, Washington PostMay 5th, 2007Two private security contractors have lodged formal protests against the Army, claiming they have been unfairly excluded from competing for one of the largest security jobs in Iraq, according to government documents and sources familiar with the matter.

US: Gag order for former Wal-Mart employee
CNN MoneyApril 9th, 2007Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) won a gag order to stop a fired security operative from talking to reporters and a judge ordered him to provide Wal-Mart attorneys with 'the names of all persons to whom he has transmitted, since January 15, 2007, any Wal-Mart information.'?

US: Executive Pay: A Special Report. More Pieces. Still a Puzzle.by Eric Dash, New York TimesApril 8th, 2007In response to a barrage of criticism that regulators have not kept up with the complexities of swelling pay packages, the Securities and Exchange Commission now requires corporate America to disclose details of executive compensation more fully. As this year’s proxies pour in, they are packed with fresh information aimed at making pay more transparent. Of course, it also is a lot more confusing.

RUSSIA: Toxic truth of secretive Siberian city
BBC NewsApril 5th, 2007A BBC team has entered a remote region of Russia normally closed to foreigners that produces almost half the world's supply of palladium - a precious metal vital for making catalytic converters. But, as the BBC's Richard Galpin reports, it is accused of being the world's largest producer of acid rain.

CHINA: In Fear Of Chinese Democracyby Harold Meyerson, Washington Post April 4th, 2007Listen to the apostles of free trade, and you'll learn that once consumer choice comes to authoritarian regimes, democracy is sure to follow. Call it the Starbucks rule: Situate enough Starbucks around Shanghai, and the Communist Party's control will crumble like dunked biscotti.

NIGERIA: Shell to raise Nigerian oil productionby Jad Mouawad, International Herald TribuneApril 4th, 2007A year after being forced to shut down more than half of its oil output in Nigeria because of militant violence, Royal Dutch Shell said it expected to resume full production within the next "five to six months," after agreeing with local communities that it could safely return to the Niger Delta.

NIGERIA: Shell to raise Nigerian oil productionby Jad Mouawad, International Herald TribuneApril 4th, 2007A year after being forced to shut down more than half of its oil output in Nigeria because of militant violence, Royal Dutch Shell said it expected to resume full production within the next "five to six months," after agreeing with local communities that it could safely return to the Niger Delta.

US: Fired Wal-Mart worker claims surveillance ops: reportReuters UKApril 4th, 2007The Wal-Mart Stores Inc. worker fired last month for intercepting a reporter's phone calls says he was part of a larger, sophisticated surveillance operation that included snooping not only on employees, but also on critics, stockholders and the consulting firm McKinsey & Co., The Wall Street Journal reported.

FRANCE: Total CEO summoned by SEC on Iran dealReuters April 3rd, 2007 The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice have summoned the chief executive of French energy giant Total SA to explain the group's activities in Iran, a French newspaper said on Tuesday.

BURMA: Shackles, torture, executions: inside Burma's jungle gulags
by Dan McDougall, The ObserverMarch 25th, 2007There is no real dissent here in Rangoon. People are too scared to be members of any democratic movement. We are all just victims, people like me who are trying to get their lives back.' Ko Min, 47, his wife and two sons were swept up with hundreds of others in a military raid on their village close to the city of Bagan in 2005. The family were put to work, clearing jungle, digging latrines and an irrigation system for a military camp outside Mandalay. (mentions Zarubezhneft oil company)

FRANCE: France Begins Formal Inquiry on Oil Executive
by James Kanter, New York TimesMarch 23rd, 2007Problems increased for the French oil company Total on Thursday when Christophe de Margerie, the chief executive, was put under formal investigation by French authorities, who are looking into allegations that the company paid kickbacks to win a gas contract in Iran during the late 1990s.

US: World Bank raps Exxon over Chadby Lesley Wroughton, Reuters March 22nd, 2007The World Bank has told an Exxon Mobil-led consortium to take corrective action to fully compensate farmers in southern Chad who lost land and their livelihoods as the U.S. company expands its search for oil in the Doba basin.

GUATEMALA: Mining misery
by Maria Amuchastegui, This MagazineMarch 21st, 2007Guatemala is one of many countries that has attracted the investment of Canadian mining companies—but at what cost to its people?

PERU: Human Rights Commission May Examine Violations at La Oroya, PeruEarthjustice Legal Fund and CIELMarch 21st, 2007Public health and environmental organizations from throughout the Western Hemisphere today announced the filing of a petition with the human rights division of the Organization of American States in Washington, D.C. The petition accuses the Peruvian government of doing little to halt contamination from a metallurgical complex that is impacting the lives and health of the citizens of La Oroya, Peru.

ARGENTINA: Famatina Says NO to Barrick Goldby David Modersbach, Mines and CommunitiesMarch 20th, 2007In the Argentine province of La Rioja, an astonishing series of events have lead to the ouster of a corrupt pro-mining provincial governor and the apparent withdrawal of gold mining giant Barrick Gold from operations on the Famatina range. Who was responsible for these events? A small group of dedicated neighbors who are fighting tooth and nail to save their mountain range from open-pit mining exploitation.

COLOMBIA: Colombia May Extradite Chiquita Officialsby Simon Romero, New York TimesMarch 19th, 2007Colombian officials said over the weekend that they would consider seeking the extradition of senior executives of Chiquita Brands International after the company pleaded guilty in United States federal court to making payments to paramilitary death squads.

UK: Spat erupts between medical journalsby Andrew Jack, Financial TimesMarch 16th, 2007A rare spat has broken out in the usually decorous world of medical journals. In a highly critical editorial, the BMJ, the former British Medical Journal, accuses Reed Elsevier, the publishing group, of “warmongering” through its international arms-fairs division, and calls on authors to boycott the Lancet, its flagship academic publication, until the links are severed.

US: Chevron Faces More Scrutiny in Ecuador over Pollutionby Emad Mekay , IPS NewsMarch 15th, 2007Leaders of indigenous communities in Ecuador are pressing their government to investigate senior executives from U.S. oil giant Chevron for an alleged environmental fraud scheme in the mid-1990s related to a long-running six-billion dollar class action suit in the South American nation.

US: Chevron wins partial dismissal in Nigeria caseHerald TribuneMarch 14th, 2007A federal judge in California threw out a racketeering claim against Chevron Corp. filed by Nigerians who claimed the oil company conspired with the military and police to gun down demonstrators protesting their operations in the African nation.

US: Halliburton to move headquarters to Dubai
by Brett Clanton, Houston ChronicleMarch 11th, 2007Halliburton Co. surprised the energy world, members of Congress and the city of Houston today by announcing it will open a new corporate headquarters in the United Arab Emirates and relocate its chief executive officer there.

US: DynCorp Hired for Somalia Peacekeepingby Chris Tomlinson, ForbesMarch 7th, 2007The State Department has hired a major military contractor to help equip and provide logistical support to international peacekeepers in Somalia, giving the United States a significant role in the critical mission without assigning combat forces.

US: Broadcasters Agree to Fine Over Payoffsby Jeff Leeds, The New York TimesMarch 6th, 2007Radio broadcasters have long been accused of corrupting the public airwaves by accepting bribes from corporate music giants.
But in a pair of agreements disclosed yesterday, the broadcasters moved to resolve accusations that they had auctioned off the airwaves by agreeing to pay a landmark penalty and pledging to play more music from independent recording artists.

US: Committee subpoenas former Walter Reed chiefby Kelly Kennedy, Army TimesMarch 3rd, 2007The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has subpoenaed Maj. Gen. George Weightman, who was fired as head of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, after Army officials refused to allow him to testify before the committee Monday.

US: BP/UC Deal Raises Concernsby Richard Brenneman, Berkeley Daily PlanetMarch 2nd, 2007The proposed agreement between one of the worldâ€™s largest oil companies, BP (formerly British Petroleum) and UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of Illinois has ignited a firestorm that promises to burn long and hot.

US: Iraq's Mercenary Kingby Robert Baer , Vanity FairMarch 1st, 2007As a former C.I.A. agent, the author knows how mercenaries work: in the shadows. But how did a notorious former British officer, Tim Spicer, come to coordinate the second-largest army in Iraq—the tens of thousands of private security contractors?

IRAQ: New Oil Law Seen as Cover for Privatisationby Emad Mekay, Inter Press News Service (IPS)February 27th, 2007The U.S.-backed Iraqi cabinet approved a new oil law Monday that is set to give foreign companies the long-term contracts and safe legal framework they have been waiting for, but which has rattled labour unions and international campaigners who say oil production should remain in the hands of Iraqis.

HONDURAS: Protests Mount Against Mining Giantby Stephen Leahy, Mines & CommunitiesFebruary 24th, 2007Dangerous levels of lead and arsenic have been found in the blood of Honduran villagers living downstream from a controversial gold and silver mine owned by Canada's Goldcorp Inc., the world's third largest gold mining firm.

US: Corporate Profits Take an Offshore Vacationby Lucy Komisar, Inter Press ServiceFebruary 23rd, 2007Last week, Merck, the pharmaceutical multinational, announced that it will pay 2.3 billion dollars in back taxes, interest and penalties in one of the largest settlements for tax evasion the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has ever imposed.

US: Translator Who Faked Identity Pleads Guilty To Having Secret Databy Josh White, Washington PostFebruary 15th, 2007An Arabic translator who used an assumed identity to get work as a contractor for the U.S. Army in Iraq pleaded guilty yesterday to federal charges of possessing classified national defense documents, including sensitive material about the insurgency that he took from an 82nd Airborne Division intelligence group in 2004.

CONGO: All that glitters...by Jean-Roger Kaseki, Guardian (UK)February 13th, 2007Decades of gold mining should have given Congo a ticket to prosperity. Instead, it is trapped in a cycle of violence and poverty.

UK: Rowntree dumps its Reed sharesby Katherine Griffiths, TelegraphFebruary 13th, 2007Two investors in Reed Elsevier have sold their shares as a protest that the publishing giant runs arms fairs which have included the sale of torture equipment.

UK: BP's BTC pipeline needs extra monitoring-US agencyFebruary 12th, 2007Extra monitoring is needed on BP PLC's (BP) Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, particularly on cracks and leakages in its coating, the U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation, or OPIC, said in a report.

UK: Monsanto helped to create one of the most contaminated sites in Britainby John Vidal, The Guardian (UK)February 12th, 2007Previously unseen Environment Agency documents from 2005 show that almost 30 years after being filled, Brofiscin is one of the most contaminated places in Britain. According to engineering company WS Atkins, in a report prepared for the agency and the local authority in 2005 but never made public, the site contains at least 67 toxic chemicals. Seven PCBs have been identified, along with vinyl chlorides and naphthalene.

FRANCE: Total on trial over 1999 French oil disasterby James Mackenzie, ReutersFebruary 12th, 2007A trial into one of France's worst environmental disasters opens on Monday with oil giant Total facing charges over toxic fuel spills that washed ashore following the sinking of the tanker Erika in 1999.

CHINA: Businesses help China's government abuse rightsby Chang Ching-hsi, Taipai TimesFebruary 9th, 2007Following the onset of reform in 1978, China has become the world's factory. By late February, its foreign exchange reserves had reached a total of US$853.7 billion, surpassing Japan's US$831.6 billion to become the largest in the world.
Meanwhile, the human rights of the Chinese people remain severely restricted.

US: New York Moves Toward Suit Over a 50-Year-Old Oil Spillby Nicholas Confessore, The New York TimesFebruary 8th, 2007New York State moved to sue Exxon Mobil and four other companies on Thursday to force them to clean up a half-century-old spill of millions of gallons of oil lying under the Greenpoint neighborhood in Brooklyn and to repair environmental damage inflicted on nearby Newtown Creek.

US: Lawsuit accuses Connecticut nursery of human traffickingby John Christoffersen, Associated PressFebruary 8th, 2007A dozen Guatemalan workers filed a federal lawsuit Thursday accusing one of the nation's largest nurseries of engaging in human trafficking by forcing them to work nearly 80 hours per week, paying them less than minimum wage and denying them medical care for injuries on the job.

NETHERLANDS: Gimme Tax Shelterby Lynnley Browning, New York TimesFebruary 4th, 2007When it comes to attracting celebrity wealth seeking shelter from taxes, the Cayman Islands and other classic Caribbean tax havens are receding in favor, according to tax experts here and overseas. But for earnings derived from intellectual property such as royalties, the Netherlands has become a tax shelter of choice.

US: Device Breaks Up in Pipeline, and Search Is On for Lost Piece
by Felicity Barringer, The New York TimesFebruary 3rd, 2007A device designed to clean waxy buildup from the walls of the 800-mile Alaska pipeline broke apart inside the pipeline in December, raising the possibility that any remaining shards of machinery might damage sensitive valves, an executive of Alyeska, the company that runs the pipeline, confirmed Thursday.

SOUTH AFRICA: MCC stalls new Aids drugsby Belinda Beresford, Mail & Guardian OnlineFebruary 3rd, 2007South Africans have been denied the “biggest advance” in antiretroviral therapy over the last few years because of a lack of urgency in the drug registration process in South Africa, according to the Treatment Action Campaign.

UK: Campaigners urge Shell to put profits into clean-upby Terry Macalister, Guardian (UK)January 31st, 2007Record annual profits to be announced by Shell tomorrow should be used towards paying off a bill estimated at more than $20bn (£10bn) for the damage caused by its oil activities to local communities and the wider environment, according to an alliance of human rights and green groups including Friends of the Earth (FoE).

US: Green like money: Activists counter PG&E's greenwashingby Amanda Witherell, SF Bay GuardianJanuary 31st, 2007During a so-called green fair at the LGBT center in San Francisco, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG & E) unveiled a $170,000 gift of solar panels for the roof of the building. But activists complain that this recent move is a greenwashing tactic, to make this corporation, which owns a mere 0 percent solar and 2 percent wind, appear green when it is in fact not.

US: PUC Not Letting Verizon off Hookby Ann S. Kim, Portland Press Herald (MAINE)January 30th, 2007The Maine Public Utilities Commission decided Monday to begin contempt proceedings against Verizon Communications for failing to affirm the truthfulness of statements the company made about its possible role in the government's warrantless surveillance program.

US: New Scanners for Tracking City Workersby Sewell Chan, New York TimesJanuary 23rd, 2007The Bloomberg administration is devoting more than $180 million toward state-of-the-art technology to keep track of when city employees come and go, with one agency requiring its workers to scan their hands each time they enter and leave the workplace.

US: Ex-Refco owner charged in fraudAssociated PressJanuary 16th, 2007A former owner of Refco Inc. was charged Tuesday in a fraud that cost investors more than $1 billion in losses, prosecutors said as they also added charges against the former chief executive and chief financial officers of the commodities brokerage giant.

US: Lockheed Stock and Two Smoking Barrelsby Richard Cummings, Playboy.comJanuary 16th, 2007If you think the Iraq war hasn't worked out very well for anyone, think again. Defense contractors such as Lockheed are thriving. And no wonder: Here's the story how Lockheed's interests- as opposed to those of the American citizenry- set the course of U.S. policy after 9/11.

US: US charges oil-for-food chiefby Brooke Masters and Mark Turner, Financial TimesJanuary 16th, 2007Benon Sevan, the administrator who was in charge of overseeing the United Nation's oil-for-food programme for Iraq, was indicted on Tuesday on federal charges of bribery and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, as part of a growing attempt by prosecutors to hold UN employees accountable to US laws.

US: Gates Foundation faces multibillion-dollar dilemmaby Kristi Heim, Seattle TimesJanuary 14th, 2007The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation owns shares of BP â€” a company accused of fouling the air with its oil refinery and paper mill in South Africa. Since the foundation spends billions of dollars to improve the health of Africans, that investment strategy would seem to conflict with its mission.

USA: Big Banks are finding it is not easy being green.
by Joseph A. Giannone and Lisa Lee, Reuters January 11th, 2007Financial giants such as Merrill Lynch and Citigroup among others are under fire from environmental groups and some investors who complain they still fund power plants and other polluting projects despite adopting the Earth-friendly Equator Principles with much fanfare in 2003.

US: Dark cloud over good works of Gates Foundationby Charles Piller, Edmund Sanders and Robyn Dixon, L A TimesJanuary 7th, 2007An ink spot certified that he had been immunized against polio and measles, thanks to a vaccination drive supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
But polio is not the only threat Justice faces. Almost since birth, he has had respiratory trouble. His neighbors call it "the cough." People blame fumes and soot spewing from flames that tower 300 feet into the air over a nearby oil plant. It is owned by the Italian petroleum giant Eni, whose investors include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

CHINA: Hundreds of workers protest company beatings
Asia NewsJanuary 5th, 2007Hundreds of workers yesterday held a protest in Pingshan (Shenzhen) outside DeCoro, an Italian sofa company, accusing supervisors of severely beating three employees who dared to ask for respect of the minimum wage. In November 2005 disputes had already taken place between the employees and the company with mutual accusations of violence made.

TRINIDAD: Trinidad's Smelter Switcherooby Peter Richards, Inter Press ServiceJanuary 4th, 2007After years of community protests, including a semi-permanent tent camp, the Trinidad and Tobago government abruptly announced that it was backing away from plans to construct aluminium smelter plants in the southwest peninsula villages of Cedros and Chatham.

US: ExxonMobil Accused of Disinformation on Warmingby Jim Lobe, Inter Press ServiceJanuary 3rd, 2007Like the tobacco industry that for decades denied a link between smoking and lung cancer, ExxonMobil has waged a "sophisticated and successful disinformation campaign" to mislead the public about global warming, according to a major new report by the U.S.-based Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).

CHILE: Chile's divisive mountain of goldby Luisa Baldini, BBC NewsJanuary 2nd, 2007Tons of gold-bearing ore need to be excavated to produce a single ounce of bullion. Once the rock has been pulverised, cyanide is used in a leaching process to extract gold and silver.

US: Toxic Teflon: Compounds from Household Products Found in Human Bloodby Stan Cox, AlternetJanuary 2nd, 2007DuPont and other companies use those synthetic compounds to make an extraordinarily wide range of products, including nonstick cookware (e.g, Teflon), grease-resistant food packaging (e.g., microwave popcorn and pizza boxes), stain-resistant fabrics and carpets (e.g., Stainmaster), shampoos, conditioners, cleaning products, electronic components, paints, firefighting foams, and a host of other artifacts of modern life.

SWEDEN: Low Prices, High Social Costs: The Secrets in Ikea's Closetby Olivier Bailly, Jean-Marc Caudron and Denis Lambert, Le Monde DiplomaticDecember 29th, 2006Despite Ikea's current claims, low prices always incur a high social cost. Between 1994 and 1997 three documentaries screened by German and Swedish television accused the firm of using child labor under degrading conditions in Pakistan, India, Vietnam and the Philippines

US: OSHA Cites Tool MakerHartford CourantDecember 27th, 2006A West Hartford tool manufacturing plant has been cited for widespread safety and health hazards for the third time in six years by the Hartford office of the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the agency said Tuesday.

CHINA: Net giants 'still failing China'by Thembi Mutch, BBC NewsDecember 18th, 2006Earlier this year net giants Google and Yahoo came under fire from Human Rights Watch and Reporters Sans Frontieres, for their activities in China. But is the criticism warranted?

US: Noose incident sparks bias suitby Collin Nash, NewsdayDecember 16th, 2006A group of African-Americans employed as installers for a Cablevision subcontractor filed a discrimination complaint Friday against their employer and the media giant, alleging intimidation by white managers who the workers say dangled a noose from the rafters.

US: Md. coal mining's toxic legacyby Tom Pelton, Baltimore SunDecember 8th, 2006In the woods at the fringe of this Western Maryland town, a mountain of waste 50 feet high is slouching into a creek that's tinted an eerie orange. The "gob pile" is refuse from a long-abandoned coal mine. And the stream into which it's eroding, Winebrenner Run, is devoid of life - one of the state's worst cases of sulfuric acid pollution from mines.

EU: Exxon spends millions to cast doubt on warmingby Andrew Buncombe and Stephen Castle, The Independent (UK)December 7th, 2006The world's largest energy company is still spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund European organisations that seek to cast doubt on the scientific consensus on global warming and undermine support for legislation to curb emission of greenhouse gases.

US: Apple gets low score in Greenpeace e-waste reportby Jim Dalrymple, MacworldDecember 6th, 2006Environmental group Greenpeace on Wednesday issued the first quarterly update on the technology industry’s performance on environmental issues. While the group recognized many companies are improving Apple does not appear to be among them — Apple remains in last place.

GHANA: Ghana's gold inflicts heavy priceby James Haselip, People and the PlanetDecember 6th, 2006Gold mining is Ghanaï¿½s most valuable export industry: in 2005, US$1.4 billion worth of gold was shipped from the country, dwarfing the value of its other major foreign currency earners - timber and cocoa. However, very little of the gold revenues stay in the country while damage to the physical environment by both large and small-scale mining is inflicting an incalculable cost to the economy with vast tracts of farming land permanently ruined, forests destroyed and water resources diverted and polluted.

AFGHANISTAN: The Reach of War; U.S. Report Finds Dismal Training of Afghan Policeby James Glantz and David Rohde; Carlotta Gall, The New York TimesDecember 4th, 2006
Five years after the fall of the Taliban, a joint report by the Pentagon and the State Department has found that the American-trained police force in Afghanistan is largely incapable of carrying out routine law enforcement work, and that managers of the $1.1 billion training program cannot say how many officers are actually on duty or where thousands of trucks and other equipment issued to police units have gone.

PHILIPPINES: Banana firm bars DoH team from proving chemical poisoningby Jeffrey M. Tupas, Inquirer (PHIL)December 1st, 2006Experts from the Department of Health (DoH) were denied entry Thursday by the management of the Tagum Agricultural Development Corporation, Inc. (Tadeco) to the company-owned hospital in Panabo City where victims of toxic chemical inhalation from the nearby town of Braulio Dujali in Davao del Norte were confined.

WORLD: Safety of Nanotechnology Needs More AttentionEnvironment News ServiceNovember 28th, 2006The number of consumer products made with nanotechnology is exploding, with a 70 percent increase in the past eight months. While recognizing the value of these molecular-level advances, critics say the Bush administration is doing too little to ensure the safety of nanotechnology for workers and the public.

US: Muslim Says He Was Abducted By U.S.by Armen Keteyian and Phil Hirschkorn., CBS NewsNovember 28th, 2006Khaled El-Masri says he is not after money but answers about why he spent five months in harsh captivity as a prisoner in the war on terrorism.

MALAWI: Bingu misled on uranium miningâ€”civil societyby Juliet Chimwaga, The Nation (Malawi)November 21st, 2006Civil society organisations accused government Monday of misleading President Bingu wa Mutharika and the nation in its dealings with Paladin Africa Limited, saying the latter are not coming out clearly on the negative impact the multi-billion kwacha uranium mining project at Kayelekera in Karonga will have on peopleâ€™s lives.

CUBA: Cuba's Military Puts Business On Front Linesby JOSÃ‰ DE CÃ“RDOBA, Wall Street JournalNovember 15th, 2006At the height of the Cold War, Cuba's soldiers became a legend on the island when they punched through enemy lines, defeating South Africa's army in Angola. Today Cuban generals are applying capitalist tactics to try to improve bottom lines in businesses that range from growing beans to running hotels and airlines.

WORLD: Controlling the Corporate Mercenariesby Nick Dearden, War on Want, ZmagNovember 7th, 2006While Iraq represents bloodshed and death on a massive scale to most people, to Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) it has brought a boom time, boosting the revenues of British-based PMSCs alone from Â£320 million in 2003 to more than Â£1.8 billion in 2004. In the same year income for the industry worldwide reached $100 billion.

PERU: Achuar win oil victory in Peruby Lisa Garrigues , Indian Country TodayNovember 6th, 2006On Oct. 24, after a 14-day occupation, representatives of the Federation of Native Communities of the Corrientes Rio (FECONACO), which includes the Quichua and Urarinas people, reached an agreement with PlusPetrol and the Peruvian government. The agreement gave them 98 percent of their demands.

US: The Package May Say Healthy, but This Grocer Begs to Differby Andrew Martin, The New York TimesNovember 6th, 2006The chain, Hannaford Brothers, developed a system called Guiding Stars that rated the nutritional value of nearly all the food and drinks at its stores from zero to three stars. Of the 27,000 products that were plugged into Hannaford’s formula, 77 percent received no stars, including many, if not most, of the processed foods that advertise themselves as good for you.

KAZAKHSTAN: Oil, Cash and Corruptionby Ron Stodghill, The New York TimesNovember 5th, 2006In February, the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan is scheduled to go to trial in the largest foreign bribery case brought against an American citizen. It involves a labyrinthine trail of international financial transfers, suspected money laundering and a dizzying array of domestic and overseas shell corporations. The criminal case names Mr. Nazarbayev as an unindicted co-conspirator.

US: Pfizer Drug Dealt Blow in Testing
by Alex Berenson, The New York TimesNovember 1st, 2006Pfizer said yesterday that clinical trials of torcetrapib — a heart medication that is the most important drug in the company’s pipeline — confirmed that it raises blood pressure, a potentially serious side effect.

US: Ponzi Scheme or Variety Show? Scams Use Leased Radio Time To Target Immigrant Listeners
by Jennifer Levitz, Wall Street JournalOctober 31st, 2006 Rick Santos, manager of WLQY-AM in Miami, says he thought the popular Creole program that aired six days a week on his radio station was a "musical variety show."
It was actually part of a fraud, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Scam artists used the radio for two years to promote an investment scheme that ensnared 631 Haitian immigrants and cost them nearly $6 million, a federal court ruled after an SEC complaint.

EU: Chemicals: A tale of fear and lobbyingby Matthew Saltmarsh, International Herald TribuneOctober 27th, 2006Three years ago, Margot Wallstrom, who was then the European Union's environment commissioner, revealed to a startled Brussels press corps that a blood test had found the presence of 28 artificial chemicals in her body, including DDT, a pesticide banned from European farms since 1983, when it was found to harm wildlife and attack the nervous system.

EU: Lobbying, European styleby Matthew Saltmarsh, International Herald TribuneOctober 27th, 2006If the European Union's eight-year effort to tighten laws governing chemicals testing has spawned one of the biggest and most costly industry lobbying campaigns that Brussels has ever seen, it has also given new impetus to efforts to regulate how lobbying is done at the European Commission.

US: Ads Test Payola Case Settlementby Jeff Leeds, The New York TimesOctober 25th, 2006Hardly more than a year has passed since the nation’s biggest record labels started agreeing to a series of measures that were intended to end the industry’s long history of employing bribes and other shady practices to influence which songs are heard on the radio.

IRAQ: Idle Contractors Add Millions to Iraq Rebuildingby James Glantz, The New York TimesOctober 25th, 2006Overhead costs have consumed more than half the budget of some reconstruction projects in Iraq, according to a government estimate released yesterday, leaving far less money than expected to provide the oil, water and electricity needed to improve the lives of Iraqis.

US: THE C.I.A.’S TRAVEL AGENTby Jane Mayer, The New YorkerOctober 23rd, 2006On the official Web site of Boeing, the world’s largest aerospace company, there is a section devoted to a subsidiary called Jeppesen International Trip Planning, based in San Jose, California. The write-up mentions that the division “offers everything needed for efficient, hassle-free, international flight operations,” spanning the globe “from Aachen to Zhengzhou.” The paragraph concludes, “Jeppesen has done it all.”

IRAQ: Pentagon Audit Clears Propaganda Effortby Mark Mazzetti, New York TimesOctober 20th, 2006An American military propaganda campaign that planted favorable news articles in the Iraqi news media did not violate laws or Pentagon regulations, but it was not properly supervised by military officials in Baghdad, an audit by the Pentagon Inspector General has concluded.

PHILIPPINES: Once-idyllic island center of debate on mining
by Cyrain Cabuenas, Inquirer (PHIL)October 19th, 2006For many years, Manicani has served as a haven for people who wanted to commune with nature or check out World War II artifacts.
These days, Siman has no glowing account of Manicani. "The island's balding mountains and depleted marine resources no longer hold any promise," he said.

US: Critics attack Myanmar’s ‘blood gem’ auctionsby Charlotte McDonald-Gibson, Agence France PresseOctober 18th, 2006With up to 90 percent of the world’s rubies and many other precious gems mined in Myanmar, chances are that a vast proportion of the stones glinting in the windows of high-end jewelers worldwide originate in the military-ruled nation.

US: Unwanted Imports: Goods deemed toxic elsewhere shipped to U.S.Associated PressOctober 15th, 2006Destined for American kitchens, planks of birch and poplar plywood are stacked to the ceiling of a cavernous port warehouse. The wood, which arrived in California via a cargo ship, carries two labels: One proclaims "Made in China," while the other warns that it contains formaldehyde, a cancer-causing chemical.

US: Wal-Mart must pay workers $78mBBCOctober 13th, 2006The world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart, has been ordered to pay at least $78m in compensation to workers who were forced to work during breaks.

US: Watchdog Group Blasts Ford for Ethanol LoopholeEnvironment News ServiceOctober 13th, 2006The Ford Motor Company is misleading the public and the government about several of its vehicles that claim to operate on ethanol, according to letters sent to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) by the watchdog group Public Citizen.

US: Honeywell Agrees to $451 Million Lake CleanupEnvironment News ServiceOctober 13th, 2006Aerospace giant Honeywell Inc. has agreed to spend $451 million to clean up contaminated sediments in Onondaga Lake, one of the most polluted lakes in the United States. The lake, a sacred site to Native America tribes, is heavily contaminated with an array of toxic metals and chemicals and is one of only three lakes listed as a federal Superfund site.

IRAQ: Corporate Torture in Iraqby
Ali Eteraz, Counter PunchOctober 11th, 2006What remains under-reported and under-appreciated is the fact that this war has afforded a vast collection of corporations to reap the benefits of lucrative government contracts. A number of such companies are involved in supervising, maintaining, and providing support for the numerous prisons in Iraq in the areas of interrogation, interpretation, and translation.

IRAQ: Heralded Iraq Police Academy a 'Disaster'by Amit R. Paley, Washington PostSeptember 28th, 2006A $75 million project to build the largest police academy in Iraq has been so grossly mismanaged that the campus now poses health risks to recruits and might need to be partially demolished, U.S. investigators have found.

US: Congress Is Told of Failures of Rebuilding Work in Iraqby James Glanz, The New York TimesSeptember 28th, 2006In a sweeping new assessment of reconstruction failures in Iraq, a federal inspector told Congress on Thursday that 13 of 14 major projects built by the American contractor Parsons that were examined by his agency were substandard, with construction deficiencies and other serious problems.

IRAQ: Contractor's Work in Iraq Is Under Scrutinyby Griffe Witte, The Washington PostSeptember 28th, 2006The contractor that botched construction of a $75 million police academy in Baghdad so badly that it was deemed a health risk has produced shoddy work on 13 out of 14 projects reviewed by federal auditors, the top official monitoring Iraq's reconstruction told Congress today.

US: Dump site back on Superfund list
by Laura Incalcaterra, The Journal NewsSeptember 27th, 2006Pollutants dumped by Ford Motor Co. and others have led the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to restore the Ringwood mines and landfill to the Superfund National Priorities List of the country's most-contaminated sites.

IRAQ: Firm That Paid Iraq Papers Gets New Dealby Rebecca Santana, Associated Press September 27th, 2006A public relations company that participated in a controversial U.S. military program that paid Iraqi newspapers for stories favorable to coalition forces has been awarded another multimillion-dollar media contract with American forces in Iraq.

US: Tobacco Makers Lose Key Ruling on Latest Suits by David Cay Johnston and Melanie Warner , The New York TimesSeptember 26th, 2006In a legal blow to the tobacco industry, a federal judge in Brooklyn ruled yesterday that people who smoked light cigarettes that were often promoted as a safer alternative to regular cigarettes can press their fraud claim as a class-action suit.

IVORY COAST: Toxic dumpers face jail termReutersSeptember 24th, 2006SUSPECTS charged in connection with the dumping of toxic waste in Ivory Coast, which killed seven people and made thousands ill, could face up to 20 years in jail if convicted, a Justice Ministry official said.

US: Army Corps Faked Budget Entries
by T. Christian Miller, The Los Angeles TimesSeptember 23rd, 2006The Army Corps of Engineers improperly created fake entries in government ledgers to maintain control over hundreds of millions of dollars in spending for the reconstruction of Iraq, according to a federal audit released Friday.

US: Border Security Contract Goes To Boeing Reuters September 22nd, 2006Boeing Co. has been chosen to build a "virtual fence" using sensors and cameras along the U.S. border with Mexico and Canada to help control illegal immigration in a contract projected to be worth up to $2 billion.

PERU: Leaching Out the Water with the Goldby Milagros Salazar, Inter Press Service (IPS)September 20th, 2006The conflict that brought operations at Yanacocha, Latin America's largest gold mine, to a halt just a month after President Alan García took office in Peru was merely the latest illustration of the tensions between mining companies and local communities in the northern province of Cajamarca.

US: New Jersey Ratepayers Stop Big Utility MergerEnvironment News ServiceSeptember 18th, 2006After two years of public hearings, litigation, testimony and negotiations and more than 11,500 letters, phone calls and emails to state decision makers, New Jersey consumers avoided higher electricity rates when Exelon walked away from its takeover bid to buy-out Public Service Enterprise Group, PSEG, a publicly traded energy and energy services company headquartered in New Jersey.

US: Farmers Fear Coal Mining Will Sink Land
by Bob Secter, Chicago TribuneSeptember 17th, 2006Two mining companies want to dig for coal under nearly half of Montgomery County. They plan to use a nontraditional but highly efficient process called "longwall" mining that will cause flat-as-a-dime land to sag like a burst souffle.

US: Spy Agencies Outsourcing to Fill Key Jobs
by Greg Miller, The Los Angeles TimesSeptember 17th, 2006At the National Counterterrorism Center — the agency created two years ago to prevent another attack like Sept. 11 — more than half of the employees are not U.S. government analysts or terrorism experts. Instead, they are outside contractors.

US: Rep. Ney Admits Selling Influenceby James V. Grimaldi and Susan Schmidt, Washington PostSeptember 16th, 2006Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio) agreed yesterday to plead guilty to corruption charges after admitting to performing a variety of official acts for lobbyists in exchange for campaign contributions, expensive meals, luxury travel, sports tickets and thousands of dollars in gambling chips. He is the first elected official to face prison time in the ongoing influence-peddling investigation of former GOP lobbying powerhouse Jack Abramoff.

COLOMBIA: 'No' to Storm Sewer Runoff, Says Fishing Villageby Constanza Vieira, Inter Press News Service September 14th, 2006The residents of a picturesque fishing village in northern Colombia are up in arms against a storm drain system being built by a majority Spanish-owned water and sewage company that will serve shantytowns in the nearby port city of Santa Marta, discharging the runoff into the cove where their village is nestled.

US: Regulator Says Civil Suit Likely For Rainesby Terence O'Hara, Washingtom PostSeptember 14th, 2006Fannie Mae's top regulator yesterday said it is "more than likely" the federal government will sue former chief executive Franklin D. Raines and other former company officers, seeking to recover bonuses and salary and perhaps impose fines for the mortgage finance company's accounting debacle.

US: Pentagon Spends Billions to Outsource Tortureby Joshua Holland, AlternetSeptember 14th, 2006The thousands of mercenary security contractors employed in the Bush administration's "War on Terror" are billed to American taxpayers, but they've handed Osama Bin Laden his greatest victories -- public relations coups that have transformed him from just another face in a crowd of radical clerics to a hero of millions in the global South (posters of Bin Laden have been spotted in largely Catholic Latin America during protests against George W. Bush).

AFRICA: War, Murder, Rape... All for Your Cellby Stan Cox, AlternetSeptember 14th, 2006Cassiterite, or tin oxide, is the most important source of the metallic element tin, and the DRC is home to fully one-third of the world's reserves. Some cassiterite miners work on sites operated directly by the country's military or other armed groups. Working in the same area are "artisanal" miners who are theoretically independent, like prospectors in America's Old West. But the cassiterite they extract is heavily taxed by the soldiers -- when it's not just stolen outright.